Zee Media Bureau/Ritesh K Srivastava
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday constituted a three-member panel to look into the allegations of sexual harassment made by a woman lawyer against one of its judges, who has now retired.
According to reports, the three-member SC panel consists of Justices RM Lodha, HL Dattu and Ranjana P Desai. The panel will start working from today evening.
The announcement in this regard was made by CJI P Sathashivam, who said the panel will go into the whole affair, verify the facts and prepare the report.
"As the head of the institution, I am also concerned about the allegation and anxious whether the statement is true or not," the CJI said.
The development comes in the wake of allegations made by a young woman lawyer, who said that she was sexually harassed by a Supreme Court judge who has now retired.
The girl, who graduated from Kolkata-based National University of Juridical Sciences this year, said that she was doing internship with the apex court judge when she was sexually harassed by him in December last year.
The lawyer had made these charges against the SC judge in question first in her blog on November 6 for `Journal of Indian Law and Society` and repeated it later in an interview to the website `Legally India`.
The girl had alleged that the judge, who was "old enough to be her grandfather", harassed her in a hotel room at a time when Delhi and the entire nation was on the boil over the December 16 gang-rape case.
The victim, who even terms herself as a `coward` for not initially raking up the issue, decided to speak out as she felt she had a responsibility to ensure that other young girls are not put in a similar situation.
When asked why she kept mum against her alleged tormentor, the girl, currently a fellow with `Natural Justice: Lawyers for Communities and the Environment`, said she kept silent because of the authority the judge commanded and that she was too stunned at the time to even react with anger.
